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Published: April 18th 2006
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Canadas strongest!
there is a street and soccer team named canadas strongest in la paz! Greeting folks! Long time no talk... so much has happened in the last few weeks... but even more so, so much has changed geographically! I knew south america was diverse geographically, but holy catnip batman! Three countreis in an hour, crazy aussie gals, my first steak, hours and hours of salt flats which look like frozen ponds... all in this issue of deep thoughts with jeff peters...
so i get to pick up from where amanda left off in la paz... yes it was the world{s hghest capital ( though we all know smiths falls is the "highest" town!),,, its quite a a view looking down into the city from above.. white capped mountains in the distance... homes built into the hillside... the city itself... well dirt cheap for sure... but also dirty dirty...
amanda and i had orginally thought about doing a project there, but we just never really felt comfortable in the city... that coupled with some awful and often entertaining travel problems for our travel buddy joan led us to leave the city earlier than we had orginally planned...
we made our way south via bus to a town called oruru and then caught a
La paz from above
the worlds highest capital ( though in terms of ¨highness¨, nuthin touches smiths falls! train the next day to uyuni... the towns themselves are rather drab... but the great thing about travelleing in south america is that the trips themselves are often some of the most spectacular views you will see... mountains, rivers, valleys... man my neck is sore from all the rubbernecking... and thats before i even get to the argentinian women!
we joined a tour company in uyuni called manyana de sol and met up with two wild and crazy aussie gals from melbourne and a guy from japan who spoke little english but made up for it in theatrics...
the trip is spread out over three days mostly spent in a 4 X 4... the first day we sisted a salt museum and saw how the bolivian people manufacture and use the salt... but it was mostly spent driving in the truck over miles and miles and miles of salt... it honestly felt like we were on dalhousie lake about to go icefishing with the bradys! Then we crossed over to where the water was about a foot deep ontop of the salt... the horizon seemed to spead out forever and the mountaisn and their reflections were simply amazing...
sunset over the desert
Heading by train to unuyi...amazing views of the sunset! we stopped at a place called fish island which is shaped like the fish... it was was covered by giant cactus... after initially being intimidated by the large phallic objects, I took in their true beauty and we had some amazing pics to boot!
that night the crew crashed at by far the worst hostel yet... we were the first ones there and we were convinced our driver hated us because they gave us a room that was aboslutely infested with flies... see the pic if ya dont believe me! It was Joans birthday the next day so we decided to crack open one of the emergency bottles of wine ( we had 8 in total!)... well ive heard of the power of saki, but apparently red wine is not that common a drink for the japanese as poor eishi keeled over and passed out right on the table at dinner... quite the show...
we got up the next morning and piled into the truck and there was only one thing on amanda{s mind... today was the day she was going to finally see flamingoes! And man did we ever! (And we have oh about 900
I didnt sleep for a month after this!
Speaking of smiths falls... no but seriously... the salt flats... salt as far as the eye can see! pics to prove it!)... we travelled hundreds of kilometres seeing tonnes of mountains , different coloured lakes, a rock forest and yes beautiful pink flamingoes !
That night we polished off the remainder of the wine ( and im happy to report that i taught the crew chase the ace, and that eishi is still alive... we think!)
The next morning we were up and at them (mcbain!) at 5 am and were at a set of natural geizers for sunrise.... truly incredible phenomenon... we then had our "showers" in natural hotsprings nearby... though i was again initially intimidated by the cold air (as we had to change outside), I quickly realized that my "competition " was the much shorter and uhhh smaller Eishi, so that made the situation much more appealing for me...
A few short hours later we were near the chilean border and had to say goodbye to our new friends who were returning to uniyi... all the best to zoe and anna (pink dolphin forever girls!)... we arrived at the border, planning to go on to a town called san pedro for easter... however at the border we realized that there was a
Fish island
Nuthin but cactus and rock surrounded by miles of salt... it literally felt like you were driving on a frozen lake! (with cactus?) bus headed for salta argentina departing right away...
seeing as that was our next destination, we decided to bear down and do the 10 hour busride to salta... we tried to say goodbye to a very confused eishi... God bless that man... he had no clue what we were saying and at last glance was walking off in the total opposite direction of the bus he was supposed to be taking ( reminded me a lil bit of a japanese episode of the lillest hobo or something)...
after a long LONG busride, we arrived safely in salta... we spent 4 great days here... like night and day... argentina is much cleaner, more civilized, less honking, safer and heres the great news... the food is amazing! I had my first glass of milk in 2 months and dicovered the joys of the parallida (BBQED everything on a plate)... new easter tradition is born!
our plan is to tour around the north of argentina for a few weeks before crossing over into chile for a few weeks... tomorrow we tour a set of canyons along with a winery tour...sounds enticing !
Oh and sports fans, dont worry, I
caught the masters..freddie couples could have won! My 2 favourite teams are meeting in the first round of the NBA playoffs (suns or lakers?)...and oh sens fans? you will be joining the mighty buds soon enuff!
miss you all and keep in touch!
jeff and amanda
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Sadie
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Well lucky for you I live 5 minutes out of SF Peters!!